Efforts to rebrand electric vehicles from strictly-functional, slow-moving urban vehicles, to speed demons that can cater to the supercar crowd, have been a long and tiring campaign by automakers, with not much participation from the big ones; who instead seem to be spending a big chunk of their R&D dough on hybrids, which is the previous logical step to completely electrical vehicles, next only to vehicles that run on dead plants. Japanese auto giant Nissan jumped into the foray of high-performance EVs, by demoing the ZEOD RC, which stakes claim to being the fastest EV on the planet. The demo earned it a slot at Le Mans 2014.

With a top-speed of 300 km/h (187 mph), and stellar acceleration figures (undisclosed), the ZEOD RC looks like a runaway Batmobile, before the conveyers at Wayne Enterprises took it to the paint-shop. A large front portion tucks in an array of batteries and capacitors, which keep the traction-motors fed. Its cockpit has just enough room for you and your score. The delta-wing design of the vehicle handles aerodynamics, and assists traction.

Nissan plans to put the ZEOD RC through intense testing this Summer, before its date with Le Mans, next year. "The ZEOD RC programme is designed to develop multiple technologies to evaluate how they could be used for a future LM P1 class return of Nissan at the Le Mans 24 Hour," said Andy Palmer, EVP of Nissan. "There are multiple options we are investigating. A zero emission on demand option where the driver can switch between electric and petrol-powered drive is a future direction for road cars, so that will be tested in addition to pure electric power and other new technologies that we still have under development."